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At the 13th annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, President Dmitry Medvedev reminded the audience of his prophetic warnings in 2008 about the origins of the global economic crisis. But while Medvedev's competence in economic matters is gradually becoming recognized around the globe, his prowess in foreign policy is being increasingly questioned in world capitals.
One year ago, Medvedev delivered his first major foreign policy speech in Berlin, in which he called for a complete overhaul of the European security system. Medvedev argued that the existing security system in Europe had become too fragmented and ineffective to handle 21st-century threats. Europe cannot rely on NATO alone for its security, he said, and should thus develop a security framework where all European nations could take part as individual members. NATO should not have the final say at the expense of other nations, he said, calling for a pan-European summit later in 2008 to develop the basic approaches to this new security architecture.
Yet a year later, this grand vision remains no more than a vague idea that Russia's leaders elude to from time to time but never describe in detail how it is supposed to work.
The vision has failed to generate much interest in European capitals largely because Moscow has been unable to put meat on the bones of its own proposal.
It is stunning that a full year later, Medvedev's first major foreign policy initiative has not even been put on paper as a coherent policy document or even a draft agreement. All that the Kremlin has produced so far is a set of vaguely worded principles on which it wants to see the new security architecture in Europe to be based.
Medvedev's foreign policy has been defined by its vacuous initiatives. Poor attention to detail and a lack of follow-up are the other two features that are beginning to adversely label Medvedev's approach to world affairs. His proposals on energy security, for example, have been so sloppily prepared that it made almost impossible for European leaders to respond to them in a meaningful way.
Pronouncing nebulous foreign policy visions without doing much to make them a diplomatic reality will only diminish Medvedev's standing internationally. The word of the Russian leader should count for something.
Vladimir Frolov is president of LEFF Group, a government-relations and PR company.
